LORAIN -- Although specific numbers on Gov. Kasich's school funding proposal have not been handed out, a look at past numbers compared to the proposed change shows a huge increase for a number of Lorain County school districts.

Kasich's "Achievement Everywhere" proposes equality among Ohio's 613 school districts by boosting funding across the board to make a level playing field.

"Our whole basis is that a child -- no matter where they live, no matter what the wealth of the district -- has the right to compete with any other child in any other district regardless of wealth," Kasich said in his presentation of the proposal Thursday.

The change would make it so every school district would generate the same amount of money from 20-mills in property taxes as a district with a $250,000 per pupil tax base. Currently, only four percent of the districts in Ohio receive more than that, Kasich said.

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The current system means that 20-mills levied in property taxes in one district could generate much less in a poor district than a rich one.

"If you have a low valuation and you raise 20-mills and you're a poor district, you could be producing $700 to $800 per pupil," Kasich said. "If you live in a wealthy district and you levy mills against your valuation, you might be producing $14,000 per pupil.

"That is a chasm we need to close," he said.

After the first 20-mills, the next 15-mills would be based on income and property values, Kasich said.

"For the first 35-mills, we are going to see significant equalization," he said.

A number of Lorain County's superintendents have said they are "cautiously optimistic" until they see the exact figures or until the proposal makes it through both the state House and Senate, where it could be dramatically changed or squashed completely.

The urban problem

Based on data from the Ohio Department of Taxation, Lorain City Schools has one of the lowest per pupil taxation bases in the state. Out of 613 public schools districts, it ranked 594 with the average value of $66,494 per pupil in fiscal year 2011. The numbers are determined by taking the total valuation of property in a school district and dividing it by the total students in the district, according to the Office of the Governor.

The top Lorain County district in 2011 was Avon Lake with an average value of $217,827 per pupil. The values for all of Ohio's schools in 2012 have not been released because of an ongoing investigation by the state auditor's office.

The proposed change sounds almost too good to be true for Lorain Superintendent Tom Tucker.

Tucker said the exact specifics to be released by the middle of this week will provide a much better idea of what the Governor's proposal could mean.

"If this can help us get some assistance to become a high performing district, then that would be great," he said.

It is not just raising the tax base that sounds good to struggling urban districts in Lorain County.

Additional funding promised to areas such as special needs and English language learning could mean a significant increase in funding for specific programs. Kasich said in his proposal that the funding will go to classrooms, not bureaucracy.

Special Needs students often are in low population, but the cost to educate every student can be astronomical, Tucker said. A single Special Needs student could cost anywhere from $15,000 to $100,000 to educate.

"If you get 8 or 10 of those kids, it can cost you $1 million," he said.

The problem is the state allocates little money to help with money needed to educate special needs and the school district ends up fronting the bulk of the cost.

In Elyria -- the school had an average value per pupil of $113,800 in 2011 -- the state funding for special education often ends up being a small percent of the cost.

The state previously established a "catastrophic funding" account, which would help pay for the higher expense students. From that account, the state dished out only about $10 million in funding among the more than 600 schools, said superintendent Paul Rigda.

Kasich's proposal could increase that to about $100 million, he said.

"Special education of all types of education is by far the most expensive," Rigda said. "If it is $1 million and they'll give us $200,000, we eat the $800,000 out of our general fund."

That $800,000 could provide an "enormous amount of service to the typical developing students," Rigda said.

"It is not like we don't want to provide special education, but it is more like (the government) doesn't want to give us the money to do it," he said.

Additional funding for preschool and for children in poverty could be a boon to Lorain County's urban districts.

Both Tucker and Rigda have said low state report cards are often because of poor early childhood education.

Roughly 17 percent of the students in Lorain are kindergarten ready, Tucker said recently. The students start out behind and often reaching the appropriate education level takes time, he said.

In Elyria, the problem also is seen. Students tend to score low until a turnaround point in middle school and by high school are performing quite well, Rigda said. More funding for preschool could mean a better performing school district as a whole.

Some proposed changes -- such as a voucher program to allow poverty-level kindergarten and 1st-graders to attend private schools, and new building funds for charter schools -- were met with skepticism by Tucker and Ridga. The changes could make it easier for students to leave the public schools.

Rigda, however, said the new funding could make it easier for his district to be even more competitive.

"If he gives us what he says he can give us, we are going to be extremely competitive even though they play with a different set of rules."

Not a cure-all

Kasich's proposal would not provide any new funds until fiscal year 2014.

Kasich guaranteed no district would receive less than it did in 2013 in the next two years, but the guarantees are an unsustainable promise and school districts should prepare for the guarantee to be phased out. He said "guaranteed funds" would mean a shrinking district could get resources that are deserved by a growing one.

"It is not sustainable and it is not fair," he said.

Avon Lake School District, which had the highest average value per pupil in 2011, is not expecting the proposal to mean huge increases to its state funding and that money will not alter its plan to ask for a 8.28-mill levy on the May ballot. The district will have a $2.8 million deficit in 2014-2015 if the levy fails. The levy will generate $6.5 million a year for 10 years.

"We don't want the community to think that we are going to get this big funding from the state and that we don't need a levy anymore," said superintendent Bob Scott.

"We will receive a little more, but it is not enough to take care of our long-term needs," he said. "Since 2007, we've lost $7 million in revenue between devaluation of our power plant and loss of the tangible personal property tax. What little we receive back here is not going to cover that loss of revenue."

Avon Lake has a high-average value per pupil because of the corporations which operate in the city limit. The high value drives away money from the city, despite the average income not being that high.

Scott said Kasich's plan sounds good, but he will be waiting on the spreadsheet.

"The good thing is they aren't making corrections by taking dollars away from other school districts," he said.

In Midview School District, superintendent John Kuhn quickly released a statement to let Midview's voters know the proposal would not change the need to pass a 9.75-mill levy in the Feb. 5 special election. The levy will stop $2.3 million in expected cuts that would drastically change the district.

"The governor's plan, at this point, is still just a proposal," Kuhn stated. "It still has to go through the legislative process at the state level, and the plan will most likely come out looking quite different than it did going in. Midview is still operating under the current funding model. We still need the levy to pass so we don't have to begin making cuts that will be devastating to our district."

For Elyria, Rigda said the proposed funding will not affect Elyria City Schools' $3 million in pending cuts.

"We needed $4.3 million and are making $3 million in reductions which leaves us with a $1.3 million problem," Rigda said.

Cutting the additional $1.3 million would cause "chaos," Rigda said and the money could help lessen that problem.

"That's how the money could help us, to make up the cuts we haven't made yet, to stop the cuts, to stop the layoffs," he said.

The district is optimistic, but not expecting a miracle.

"We're not looking at extraordinary," he said. "If we can get something substantially better than what we are getting, we'll be happy and we'll make it work."